


New Year, New Me

by Syrum



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, New Year's Eve, New Year's Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 12:05:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5625979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrum/pseuds/Syrum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Len hates this time of year, and all he wants to do is sit and get drunk on his rooftop on his own.  Except, it’s not his rooftop and Barry isn’t about to let him spend the first minutes of 2016 alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Year, New Me

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know it's two days late. Oops.
> 
> (At least it's not as late as the unfinished Christmas fic...)

Len hated Christmas. Despised it, even. They hadn’t particularly celebrated it as children, Lisa and himself. Sure, their father had put up the tree, decorated the outside of their house with lights and worn the obligatory santa hat to work, but they didn’t celebrate as such.

How could they, when Christmas day so often started with a split lip and a half-empty bottle of whisky? The presents under the tree, sparse though they were, had never been intended for them; gifts from other cops at the precinct, from the few friends their father kept, occasionally with Len or Lisa’s name on the tags but never, _never_ for them. Anything worth more than a few dollars would be sold, pawned in for more beer money, and anything less would go in the garbage, unless it could be salvaged before the garbage men came at the end of the festive season.

Twice, Len had managed to save a gift from his father. The first time was nothing special; a bear, small and unremarkable, that ‘Danny’ at the station had bought for Lisa. It was grey, with big green eyes and a stitched smile, and she absolutely adored it. She had been five years old, and even at that age knew to keep the thing hidden, keep it away from Lewis’ prying eyes. By the time he did, eventually, find it, the bear was so well-loved and the memory of the gift so long past that he said nothing.

The second time hadn’t gone quite so well. Two gifts had caught Len’s eye that year; he was fifteen, rooting in the garbage can for the baseball cap that had, for some reason, had his name attached to it when Lewis had found him. The man had dragged him back inside, beating him black and blue before locking him in the small cupboard reserved for him, or Lisa, whenever they ‘misbehaved’. His arm was broken, he was sporting two black eyes that were already swelling enough that it was difficult to see - not that he needed to, in the pitch black of his prison - and his back ached, but at least the small snow globe he had grabbed for Lisa was still in one piece in his pocket.

It hadn’t gotten much better as they aged; Len had left as soon as it became apparent that Lisa’s beatings were made exponentially worse by his presence at her side, his little sister unable to stop herself from trying to protect him, even as he covered for her, taking the boot, the fist, the bottle. He knew it was impossible to try to contact her, to send her things, once he was out of that house for good, and each Christmas that rolled around, he spent the day sitting alone and drinking, pondering on the sister he had left behind and how she was doing. One, spent in Iron Heights, was particularly awful; he picked a fight with an inmate far larger and stronger than Len could ever hope to be. He might have won, too, if the man’s friends hadn’t decided to wade in, and the rest of the season was spent strapped to a hospital bed.

That year, Christmas had come and gone in an unremarkable fashion. He had partially expected Lisa to try to drag some ‘Christmas cheer’ from him, considering it was their first together since childhood, but she knew him well, knew his moods, and left him to it. A large bottle of scotch and a six pack of beers appeared in his room, and he enjoyed them in the spirit they were meant, not mentioning either to Lisa, just as she did not mention the diamond necklace that appeared on her dresser on Christmas morning.

Sitting upon the rooftop, Len took another swig of the gifted scotch straight from the bottle, enjoying the burn as it slid down his throat. It had been snowing again, a blanket of white covering the asphalt beneath his hands as he leaned back, watching the lights in the sky flicker and burn out with a pop and a sparkle. Fireworks had always seemed rather pointless to him, though he had to admit that they were perhaps a little pretty, bursting amongst the pure-white flakes of cold that still drifted listlessly from the thinning cloud cover overhead. It was dark, late, perhaps near midnight judging from the increase in activity up above and the decrease in the streets below, and he scoffed to himself at the idiots setting their overpriced explosives off early.

“I thought I might find you here.” The snow hadn’t been displaced, there was no rush of air, and Len offered the man standing behind him a slightly sceptical glance before returning his attention to the night sky.

“On a random rooftop, doing nothing in particular? Really, Barry, don’t you have anything better to do?” He sneered, but there was no malice behind it, the expression twisting his features for only a moment before they settled back to slightly intoxicated neutrality.

“Not really.” There was the brush of leather against fabric as Barry took a seat next to him, and he had to admit the kid looked good in that leather jacket, looked better than he really had any right to. “Besides, it’s hardly ‘random’, it’s the same rooftop I found you on last time I was looking for you.” Had it been? Len supposed it had. For all his cleverness, his intrinsic desire to outwit those he considered to be lesser men, he was a creature of habit, and once someone was able to unravel those habits, he became really quite predictable.

“Why are you here?” There was a terse note to his voice, and where once his attention had been focussed almost entirely on the sky above, now he could not seem to shift it away from the form near enough pressed to his side, heat felt even through the thick down of his parka.

“I’m watching the fireworks.” Barry replied with a grin, and the warm breath against Len’s cheek betrayed the fact that the kid most certainly wasn’t watching them.

“Well go and watch them somewhere else.”

“No, I think I like it just fine right here.” He could have moved, could have gotten to his feet and left, skulked back down to the street below and made his way home; it would certainly be warmer, and yet somehow colder too, and Len found he did not want to leave. They sat in an almost companionable silence and, after a while, Len passed the bottle to Barry, watching as the speedster took a mouthful of the amber liquid, screwing up his face as he swallowed it down. _Cute_ he thought, though did not voice his opinion, taking the bottle back and smirking at the way the man beside him wrinkled his nose.

“It’s almost midnight.” Len hummed, feeling the pleasant buzz of the alcohol in his bloodstream, leaning into Barry without really meaning to. The bottle was half empty, and he was _certain_ he hadn’t drank quite _that_ much. Or, maybe he had he thought, as a slight turn of his head took him that bit closer to the speedster at his side. “Don’t you want to be with your family?” Too close, far too close, and if he wasn’t careful Len was about to do something he might well regret as that delectable mouth twisted up into a smile.

“No, right now I’m exactly where I want to be.” Barry was staring at him again, an intensity there that Len was nowhere near sober enough to translate into anything resembling English. Fingers brushed his own, oddly warm against the chill of snow, and Len startled slightly, forgetting how to breathe. There was a pause, silence hanging heavy between them, waiting for something to shatter it one way or another. A clock chimed somewhere in the distance, and the corners of Barry’s mouth twitched up slightly at the sound.

“Happy new year, Barry.” Len murmured, unable to stop the small smile that twisted and softened his own features, fingers warming slightly as Barry tangled his own around the frigid digits.

“Happy new year.” The speedster agreed, closing the distance between them to press their lips together in a kiss that was soft and sweet, lingering in a way that set Len’s heart racing. Wrapping an arm around Barry’s waist, he pulled the younger man into his lap, moaning into the kiss as Barry nibbled at his lower lip. He was drunk enough to go along with whatever the kid wanted, and sober enough to know that he really shouldn’t. Yet, as the kiss broke and Barry grinned down at him like the cat who just got the cream, Len found he really couldn’t bring himself to care. Damn the consequences to hell, he thought as he pushed up into another searing kiss, stars of light exploding overhead.


End file.
